Pope makes his money operating a chains of discount retailers like Roses and Maxway, both owned by his family company, Variety Wholesalers.

In addition to giving directly to candidates and funneling money through other organizations to support the political campaigns of right-wing state politicians, Pope spends the family fortune he inherited and the millions of dollars these stores earn him to prop up stink tanks like the John Locke Foundation and Civitas and to fund corporate front groups like Americans for Prosperity North Carolina.

These organizations and Pope’s bought politicians have embarked on a successful campaign this year to restrict voting rights, reject access affordable health care, cut unemployment benefits, defund and privatize public education, lower taxes on the rich and profitable corporations, and, generally speaking, turn the clock back 50 years in North Carolina.

Moral Monday protest sign

Yet many people who shop at or live in the communities served by Roses and Maxway stores have no idea how the man who owns those stores spends his money to keep people poor.

Informational Pickets

Working together in coalition with the North Carolina NAACP, Democracy North Carolina, Action North Carolina, and others in the burgeoning “Forward Together” Movement, we at the North Carolina State AFL-CIO and our affiliated local unions are sounding the alarm about Art Pope.

What we see with Art Pope is the most lewd and cynical and sinister form of wealth and power manipulation. To put your stores deliberately and publicly in communities of low wealth and 25 percent African-American, make your wealth off of people, pay them low wages, and then in turn use that power to push and promote policies that are adverse to their lives and diametrically opposed to their future, is just untenable.”

The picketers are not calling for a boycott of Art Pope-owned stores. The purpose is to inform the communities surrounding these stores, North Carolina, and the nation about the ways that Art Pope uses his money to hurt the very people who work and shop at his stores.

Interested in holding an informational picket about Art Pope’s low-wage retail and big-money political empire? Send Adam an email to adam@aflcionc.org.

We can help you with signs, handouts for customers and other passersby, talking points, media outreach, and permits. See what the handout looks like: http://bit.ly/18XbKv5 (English) and http://bit.ly/18XbDQ8 (Spanish).

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The North Carolina State AFL-CIO is the largest association of local unions and union councils in North Carolina, representing over one-hundred and forty-thousand union members, fighting for good jobs, safe workplaces, workers’ rights, consumer protections, and quality public services on behalf of ALL working people.